Story:
Overall I think the story was very good. It had everything to be perfect: a utopian city, Kings and their clansmen with supernatural powers, a hero trying to prove his innocence on a murder, a devoted and mysterious clansman, a girl/cat also with superpowers, you name it.
However, and this is a common point between many reviewers so far, it had a lot to be explored and explained and that simply wasn’t. I feel like 13 episodes, for everything that HAD to be presented clearly to us viewers, weren’t enough. But I also think that for only 13 episodes it’s not as bad and horrid as many people point out. They made it 13 episodes long, we just have to accept the fact, it wasn’t our decision.
Okay, so yes, there were many questions that arose to my head while watching the anime; probably they were the same as some of you viewers and reviewers had. Just to point out a few (spoiler alert):
1. Who are these Kings, where do they come from and how did they get their powers (therefore also giving them to their clansmen)?
2. Sword of Damocles? Okay, it’s apparently a “symbol of a king and manifests the truest image of its king’s condition” (Munakata, ep 10). From what little I could understand every time the Kings fight the Sword appears, but still… I guess this one relates to the first question.
3. Weissman level? This one here got me really confused; I know Weissman had that experiment he showed to the future Gold King, but… I actually don’t quite get it.
4. Kagutsu crater? From Munakata’s speech (ep 3) it was some kind of disaster caused by some excessive power usage, but it wasn’t fully detailed so one can only wonder.
5. Also… what are those crazy robot things?! No one has mentioned them here at MAL yet in their reviews and seriously, their talking and crazy acting give me the creeps.
6. And finally... what does K stand for?!
Characters:
Despite of the whole “poorly developed characters” speech I’ve been reading in pretty much every review, I feel like one should look at it with other eyes. If you can actually put that aside, you’ll realize that each character, despite their apparent complexity, actually has its own uniqueness to them. Even though you never get to know what they are thinking, you get pretty much a lot of dialogue between them that reveals you their nature. Don’t be lazy and actually try to read between the lines, don’t limit yourself to just listen to what the characters say.
You can’t expect that in 13 episodes you’ll get major character progression. Dream all you want, but then you’d have no background story to focus on, just characters, their own life stories and relations.
There are so many wonderful characters in this anime and the voice cast is as amazing as it can get (now this part may be a bit biased seeing as the cast counts with some of my favorite seiyuus of all times – Sakurai Takahiro, Miyano Mamoru, Fukuyama Jun and Nakamura Yuuichi).
And, seeing as the characters are so complex, you get no insight and you have to do your own homework of trying to understand them, I could have only wished to more and more episodes just to unveil all of their pasts and relationships.
Be aware of spoilers in the next paragraphs.
For starters, my absolute favorite characters were Fushimi and Yata (along with their obvious lovexhate relationship). I love the fact that Fushimi is so sadistic and psychotic as much as I love Yata’s devotion to HOMRA and Mikoto. Yata is probably the earnest character you’ll get on this show (even more than Shiro). And even though you pretty much know their story (old friends, joined Mikoto and HOMRA, Fushimi gets jealous of Yata’s relationship with Mikoto, leaves out of said jealousy), I personally wanted to know more.
What you probably wanted to know more of was the MunakataxMikoto relationship. First of all it’s obvious they knew each other prior to becoming Kings (in my understanding), but whatever happened between those two events (meeting and the ‘present’) we don’t know and pretty much will remain oblivious to if they don’t explain it further in the second season (which is a topic I’ll be addressing to in the end).
Now one relationship that makes me conflicted: ShiroxKuroh. Okay, so most of us Westerns were wondering: “WHY THE HELL DOESN’T KUROH JUST KILL SHIRO RIGHT AWAY?!” (am I right, or what?). But one thing we have to understand is that Japanese mentality is nothing like ours. So the whole Shiro trying to explain himself and Kuroh not killing him right away became pretty much “acceptable” as soon as I passed that initial indignation phase.
And I just talked about what appear to be the 3 main character bonds of the story. But I was once more sunk into a sea of questions:
1. Anna. She’s probably one of the best characters of this show by far. But everyone wants to know: the essence of her powers and why and how is she close to Mikoto in the first place.
2. AwashimaxKusanagi. Like Munakata and Mikoto they obviously knew each other before HOMRA and SCEPTER 4, so… a little insight was needed on this.
3. Miwa Ichigen. He’s pretty much a mystery and that’s it. We get to hear his “avant-garde poetry” and… that’s it.
Art:
I won’t delay myself in here, because it’s plain to see that the art is purely magnificent. So, there you go: magnificent.
Music:
I won’t talk about the OP and ED, just the BGM. It was simply fantastic. It’s probably one of the best anime soundtracks I’ve ever had the pleasure to listen to and the songs always fit perfectly into the mood of the scene.
2nd Season:
Okay, SPOILER ALERT (if you haven’t watched this anime yet, I recommend skipping the next paragraph. You have been warned).
My whole question about this: how can there be a second season when the apparent main character is dead? When Mikoto himself is dead? Unless this second season is, I don’t know, just in depth episodes on the characters relationships, or we meeting the other Kings because something tragic is about to happen, or even ALL of our questions being answered, I simply HAVE NO IDEA as to what the second season might be about. Seriously.
To end this, I don’t know whether I should recommend this anime or not. Like everything in life, it isn’t perfect. It has some flaws, and I’ve gone through some of them, those that I found the most relevant in my way of thinking. I think that, if you find the summary interesting, if the art captivates you, if you’re simply curious, or whatever other reasons you may have to want to watch this anime, go right ahead and do it. Take your own conclusions as to this is a great anime or not.
